Entry by Mary Pope-Handy

What "ACRE Principles" Guide Your Real Estate Practice and Differentiate You From The Competition?

  6 Comments

Being an ACRE means having a different way of viewing things and a different way of working with your clients. To me, one of the most salient aspects is the focus on providing consumers options.

I work at a traditional brokerage, but I, too, view things through the ACRE lens and look for ways to provide options to my clients and truly consult with them rather than sell to them. With that in mind, I did a post today on buyer broker agreements, which are not only unpopular here in Silicon Valley, but are viewed rather dimly (link to a post on Trulia of another blogger in Los Gatos who thinks that buyer broker agreements simply show a lack of trust and are rarely necessary).

Whether you are in a traditional or non-traditional office, how do you provide options which are different than those typically found in your area? How is your "slant" on things particularly ACRE-inspired?

I'd like to do a roundtable post with several ACREs, whether you're doing a lot of work which is ostensibly different or if there are even subtle differences to your approach to your real estate practice.

Please respond in the comments section or shoot me an email at Mary (at) PopeHandy.com and we'll get it rolling!

(PS If you visit the post on Trulia, please don't leave a bunch of argumentative messages - I don't want to "sic" the ACRE community on him!)

6 Comments

My client, the Seller, just closed on a property I was marketing/selling for her. As a result of updating the listing for this property I was reminded on how terminology that was appropriate for the days when everybody represented the Seller is still in use.

The form that was presented to me from the MLS asked for the Selling Agent's ID and name. I had to think about this for a while since it was me that sold it yet the MLS form was wanting the information for the agent that represented the Buyer.

As an ACRE I think of the Buyer's Agent as the Buying Agent and the Listing Agent as the Selling Agent. I really don't understand how an agent that represents a Buyer and has a fiduciary responsibility to the Buyer can EVER be involved in activities that include selling to their client.

MPH I will be on your round table discussion. It's odd that people do business when they list a house with a written agreement, but they don't think they should do the same with a buyer? It spells everything out, lol. Have to check that post out.

Joseph, not sure about your MLS but they track our stats by if it was a listing or a sale. Thats why we are asked when closing out a file to put the other agents info in the mls.

Joseph, in my neck of the woods (Silicon Valley), and I believe in all of California, we refer to the 2 agents as "listing agent" and "selling agent". It confuses everyone but there'd have been no sale without the buyer's agent. For years, only listing agents were allowed to send out "just sold" cards, but about 5 or 10 years ago, that changed, and now buyer's agents may also send out "just sold" cards around a home where they were the co-operating agent involved in the sale.

Paula, in our area, too, both agents are tracked. In fact, from our mls we can export the info to a spreadsheet and that's VERY useful to do because it enables you to sort info by any number of factors, such as who's listing or representing buyers, what commission rate was offered to the buyer's agent, how long it was on the market, sale type (REO, short sale, regular) etc. I love excell for this! If you take a listing in an area, it's really good to know which agents you might target for info on your new listing too.

Paula thanks for your offer to be in on the round table. You are always so helpful! I need more, though...anyone else? Joseph would you like in on it?

Mary

Mary, I know Ron Stuart commented to me that he'd like to be on this round table.

Mollie

I was going to suggest Ron, he is such a wealth of knowledge. Mollie, so are you,Laurie Furem, JudyB, Brent who we haven't heard from in a while (Brent where are you?) and of course our rocket scientist Merv if we could pull him away from his travels around the world ;-)
Stacy would be another good one, and I'm sure many others....don't worry if you are new, your input is very valued, we learn much from new agents here and you can learn much from us. Send Mary an email or just post a message to the exchange to volunteer for this. Remember, we can't help you if you don't participate.

oh, and Betty Byrnes!! yes!! Come on people now, lets get together! This way we can plan a day and time. the market is changing and we need to keep up and show the world how ACRE is the way to go!

This page contains a single entry by Mary Pope-Handy published on May 28, 2010 11:36 PM.

Is Social Media ripe for your real estate advertising? was the previous entry in this blog.

Attention ACRE Brokers (and all others interested) is the next entry in this blog.

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